This invention relates to games and contests and particularly to the construction of tickets used therein and to a method of fabricating such tickets.
A large number and variety of legal lotteries and contests exist in which participants may win a prize. Private groups conduct contests for charitable purposes, commercial enterprises operate games of chance and several states sponsor and supervise lotteries in their states and have established networks of selling agents to promote a wide distribution of lottery tickets throughout their state. In a conventional type of lottery the participant purchases, or in a promotional contest, game or lottery is given, a lottery ticket inscribed with a lottery number. Instructions, announcements and indicia on the ticket of the operative source of the ticket may also appear. Each ticket bears a unique lottery number which distinguishes it from every other lottery ticket in the same game or contest. At a later pre-established date, when additional lottery tickets in the same game are no longer offered for sale, a winning number is determined by a random chance selection from a population of numbers matching the population of lottery numbers in distribution, or the winning lottery number is determined in a manner whereby accurate prediction of the winning number is highly improbable, e.g., the last six digits in the U.S. Treasury balance as printed in the daily newspaper on a predetermined date. In either case, the winning number, as such, is nonexistent until its moment of selection or determination. A holder of a lottery ticket bearing the winning number presents the ticket to the game operator to collect his prize.
Security is provided in state lotteries by generating lottery numbers under computer control. The serial number, which is printed on each ticket to identify the game, ticket lot and the individual ticket, is converted internally by the computer into a sequential series of intermediate numbers. In a second computerized step a complex computer algorithm based on a series of operators is employed to act on the intermediate numbers to develop lottery numbers (which form the bases for winning the lottery) that are printed on the ticket along with its paired serial number under the computer's direction. The relation between each ticket's serial number and its associated lottery number, for practical purposes, cannot be deciphered by those who do not know the algorithm. Any attempt to alter or change lottery numbers may be detected by the computer operating in accordance with the algorithm when the interrelationship between lottery and serial number is tested prior to payment of prize awards. Thereby, a high security system is achieved.
Another type of lottery that is used is called an "instant" lottery because the winning lottery number is known before the ticket is sold, so that a player can know whether he has won or lost within a few moments after his purchase. In such an instant lottery, the winning lottery numbers (or other indicia) are selected or determined and listed by the operator of the lottery prior to the sale of lottery tickets and are made known or available to players prior to their purchases of tickets. The list of winning numbers and associated prizes may be posted publicly or printed on the front or back face of the ticket. However, the lottery number (or other indicia) printed on the ticket is concealed, e.g., by an opaque covering such as paper that can be torn off to reveal the number, or a removable coating or metal foil that covers the number, or special printing inks are used, such as those that change under applied heat or special agent. A ticket's lottery number, which determines whether the ticket holder is a winner (or loser), does not become apparent to the player (or to the ticket seller) until after purchase, the ticket is acted upon by an external stimulus or agent to reveal the true number (e.g., by removing the covering to expose the lottery number to view). When transformed to an intelligible state, this ticket lottery number is compared against the list of winning numbers or other indicia; a matching of indicia entitles the ticket holder to a prize.
For security in an instant lottery (one wherein the winning numbers are known to the public when the ticket is purchased) concealment or disguise is provided for the individual lottery number imprinted on each ticket. This inherent feature of the ticket must be coupled with external means to quickly and easily expose the lottery number so that immediate comparison can be made between the ticket lottery number and a listing of winning numbers. The process of transformation whereby the lottery number becomes intelligible must be irreversible such that the selling agent or the purchaser is unable to restore the ticket to its original condition without tell-tale signs of alteration. Thus, a second use or sale of a ticket is precluded. Techniques for concealment or disguise of the lottery number are known in the art.
If the prize has a high monetary value, the winning ticket generally must be presented to the game operator for collection of the prize; however, in some contests, small prizes may be paid immediately to the winner by the ticket selling agent. These procedures for fast payment in instant lotteries have the advantage of stimulating player interest. But the shortened time periods before payment present risks of financial loss to the game operator which are not present in other lottery games wherein the winning numbers in a game are undetermined until availability of tickets for sale in that game has been terminated. In the latter type of lottery before a winning number is determined, all unsold tickets can be returned to the game operator or cancelled by the selling agents; a record of all sold and unsold tickets can be prepared and compared with records of original ticket distributions to selling agents; money from sales can be collected and accounted for in terms of the number and value of tickets sold. When a winning ticket is presented, it can be unhurriedly checked for authenticity and any fraudulent alteration of tickets or duplication which could result in multiple requests for payment of a prize is easily detected. For these reasons, government-operated lotteries in this country have employed the type of lottery in which the drawing of the winners takes place after all of the tickets are sold.
On the other hand, in the instant lottery contest, winning tickets may be presented for payment while the game is current. Additional tickets for the same lottery game remain on sale and continue to be sold. Should a well-counterfeited or altered ticket of the prior art type bearing a winning lottery number be presented for payment it is virtually impossible (without accounting for all sold and unsold tickets by discontinuing further sales in the same lottery contest) to determine whether or not the presented ticket had actually been delivered to the bearer upon valid sale by an authorized lottery ticket selling agent. The authentic ticket bearing the same winning lottery number may be unsold in the possession of the sales agent with the number still concealed, or the authentic ticket may be legitimately in the possession of another purchaser at the time when the falsified ticket is presented for payment.
Where there are prizes in smaller denominations of value (as is frequently the arrangement in widely promoted state lotteries) the ticket selling agent may often be authorized to make instant payment to a person presenting a ticket bearing a winning number, though the selling agent in this situation has little protection against fraud. In addition to the problems of fraud perpetrated on the game operator by customers there are several other very serious drawbacks in the present mode of operating instant lotteries. The expense of preparing tickets is high and the dangers of fraud by employees of the game operator who prepare the tickets are also significant.
Tickets for instant lotteries are now fabricated in various ways: One method uses a continuous printing press with sequencers to change the game numbers and serial numbers printed on the tickets. The sequencers advance for each ticket which passes through the press. Although the game number and serial number on a ticket are not permitted to be the same, there exists a simple relationship between the serial number and the game number by virtue of the sequencers advancing one digit for each ticket printed. After the tickets have been printed, the game number is concealed and ticket order is shuffled. However, it is a relatively simple matter for a person to determine the correlation between the serial number and the game number.
In an instant lottery this can be detrimental to the system security in that the serial number is generally used by the game operator to record ticket allocations among his sales agents. Any person or combinations of persons knowledgeable of the ticket-distribution channels and able to decipher the simple correlation between serial numbers and winning numbers can easily locate the sales agent possessing the winning tickets. Thus, in collusion with the sales agent, fraud on the game operator and the public is possible. Also an open purchase from the sales agent of his entire ticket allotment would be effective when a winning number entitled to a large prize award is calculated to be within the ticket allotment. Moreover, players, after purchasing several tickets, would be able to determine the fixed relationship between visible serial numbers and concealed lottery numbers and avoid additional purchase of "losing" tickets. Further, the counterfeiting of a winning lottery ticket, including the proper serial number, would be made possible when, as in the case of the instant lottery, the winning number is already known and the relationship to the serial number is easily decipherable.
Another method of printing lottery tickets employs a sheet press. In this technique, engraved plates for printing are prepared; a plate may contain 200 tickets, each with a different lottery number, but with some simple sequence to the numbers. The fabrication would be performed in batches, say of 50 plates to prepare for 10,000 tickets, and a hundred such batches are needed for a million-ticket game. After a sheet containing a plurality of tickets is printed, the sheet is sliced into the individual tickets. These sliced tickets are then stacked and shuffled to ensure that the lottery numbers on the tickets are not in consecutive order. Tickets bearing winning numbers are interspersed at the will of the game operator among the entire batch of tickets so there is a wide and preferred distribution of winners. Then the shuffled stacks of tickets, including the winning tickets, are fed manually into a serializer so that a consecutive serial number is imprinted on each ticket for the game operators' record-keeping and accounting purposes. Concealment of the lottery number is provided at any step in the process suited to the method chosen for concealment. In this way, stacks of tickets visibly numbered consecutively but having a scrambled arrangement of concealed lottery numbers are provided. Although the lottery numbers are concealed prior to the final stacking process, there are many manual steps in the procedure and ample time for the unscrupulous to identify the destination and the quantitative distribution of winning tickets. Additionally, the fabrication process provides opportunities for careless errors, as in printing duplicate sheets of lottery tickets from a single plate or failing to print a plate of tickets.